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History
'The Conflict' As the twenty-first century progressed, the relentless march of globalizati on continued. International trade, intentionally or not, continued to concentrate wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people, expanding the gap between the poor and the rich. The influence of multinational corporations continued to increase and nations which had previously been happy to attract investment and profit by serv ing as flags of convenience to multinationals often found their governments, over time, serving as little more than a public relations mouthpiece for the increasingly amalgamated, increasingly monopolistic, corporations. Resource development and exploitation (though they were careful not to call it this) continued, oil and mineral wealth continuing to drive growth and public spending as it had in the 20th century and earlier portions of the 21st. Ecologists warned us again and again and even as a significant portion of the population adopted new, greener, energy sources and manufacturing methods, the entrenchment of the existing systems, and even the very forces of the market itself served to reinforce the need to explore and exploit new resources, often to the detriment of local populations who’s power and influence to stop these companies were just not competitive with multinational-backed lobbyists. In the late 20th and early 21st century the public had grown disenchanted with their governing bodies, pessimistic and apathetic in regards to their ability to truly influence their futures. Economic hardship and political disenfranchisement accelerated this process through the middle 21st century; in the United States national Presidential elections plummeted from 55% in 2000 to less than 15% in 2050. The same thing was happening across the world. As the multinationals grew to become transnationals and, through their wealth and influence, came to effectively dominate first third world nations, then increasingly, the emerging nations, they were awarded more and more powers, effectively, though not officially gaining independent sovereign territory in Panama, Liberia, and the Marshall Islands in the late 2030s and holding such extreme powers and private armies in central Asia, the Balkans, some south-American states, and even Canada as to be effectively a law onto themselves by the 2040s. The public did not react well. The unemployed, the working poor, the underemployed, the indebted youth, sympathetic academics, idealists, environments, and socialists were increasingly disenfranchised but perhaps unfortunately too poor, too unconnected, too disorganized to stand in the face of the established powers and their influence over government, and increasingly, non-government institutions. Between the twenty-oughts and the twenty-sixties, a series of small rallies (similar to the early 21st century movement calling itself "Occupy"), and grassroots cooperative organizations blossomed and fell, moments of often brief publicity that did much to keep the subject of wealth inequality top-of-mind but more often than not, doing more to harm their cause then to help it. Rallies turned to riots in the 2030s and 40s and by the 2050s armed, organized, anti-government, anti-corporate groups were increasingly in the public eye, their leaders terrorists, their adherents traitors. At the same time, technology, globalization, and freedom of information all conspired against the powers of governments. Virtual currencies were becoming increasingly popular and privatized, international black-markets first competing with then dwarfing national currencies and regulated markets. This made tax collection and wealth accumulation in the administrative institutions increasingly difficult amidst a population that had long ago lost trust in their governments. In this world of super-globalization, predatory transnationalism, failing governments, and extreme wealth inequality, it was only a matter of time before something broke. And so finally, as conditions worsened, and the world’s population reached 9 billion, as unemployment or underemployment continued to rise, as water and food security became very real concerns for more than half the world's population, as housing and energy accessibility began to define the haves and have-nots, as extreme climate instability caused unprecedented devastation on a wide scale, violent rebellion broke out first in isolated flares, then within half a decade, was widespread across the globe. The 2060s saw the single greatest conflict in world history, a world war that made World War II look like an regional conflict. Ultimately it was more similar to the Russian Revolution of 1917 than the conventional wars of the mid-twentieth century, except that this revolution spanned not just one nation, but the entire globe. Even early in the conflict the media began to describe the rebellion as the final clash between two ultimately, irreconcilable systems, democracy and capitalism. That narrative proved both popular with the news-entertainment market and incendiary with the population and the growing rebel movement. The narrative of capitalism vs. democracy was a popular one for academics and idealists, and those with the resources to feel somehow outside the conflict- at least initially- but for those involved it was more a conflict to secure water, food, energy, to dismantle the systems, primarily corporate, but also government and others, that had disenfranchised them for too long. Socialist and anti-capitalist, anti-corporate coups rocked many nations, ignoring national borders using many of the same tools the Islamic revolutions of the twenty-twenties and thirties had already established and tested. The corporations had the money and they had the guns but the people had the numbers and increasingly, a fanatical will. Many thought it was the end-times. It was a civil war, but fought on a global scale, and almost every part of the globe was directly involved. The transnationals simply did not concern themselves with the wishes of most national governments and the national governments were powerless to prevent this. Without the funds and guns of the transnationals and without the support of their populations, the governments simply weren’t. As international law was openly broken by almost every nation remaining and the transnationals, who were as powerful or more than most nations themselves, were not represented upon its councils directly, the UN also failed. The class war, which came to be known simply as 'The Conflict' was not fought like a conventional war, with uniformed soldiers on each side killing each others in the millions until such time as men in ties signed paper saying it was over. Rebel leadership was diverse and, often, conflicting. Initially many transnationals and governments had seen the confusion and violence as a means to undercut their competitors or rivals and had attempted to sponsor particular groups, 'aiming' them when possible. That proved shortsighted and within a few years the process had stopped as most of the entrenched system was fighting for their very survival. Idealists of all stripes fought against the established order to try and establish a future they envisioned. Socialists, communists, faithful of most religions all fought for their own causes. Old tribal and racial banners were raised to replace the fall of national flags. While some would come to some compromise and the fighting would end, others would be mounting a new offensive. The conflict might smolder for a few years in one location or another but across the world, it did not die out for a long, long time. Even now it is difficult to say exactly how long the war and violence lasted and how many were lost. The Conflict was perhaps the single greatest moment of confusion and anarchy in written history. While major wars between nations soon petered out, the violence continued, on and off again, in flares that brought down entire nations or transnational corporate-states who's GDP could rival, in some cases, western European nations. By the late 2080s, the world seemed to have had enough. Twenty-five years of world-wide conflict had tore through hundreds of years of post-industrial nation-building, socio-economic stratification, and human culture. When the dust settled, the world was unrecognizable. Nations had simply stopped existing. Supranational organizations, corporations, socialists, idealists of every variety had taken over. The violence abated and the people of the world looked around them, disbelief, relief, sorrow, or horror overtaking them; realizing that it would never be the same as it once was. It was the post-national era. In the 30 years since the Conflict, we have organized ourselves. We govern ourselves primarily through voluntary membership in post-national organizations we call phyles. Phyles organize their membership along ideological lines; in the reality of a global transport infrastructure, it is very easy to ignore traditional territorial or previous national boundaries. Some phyles are the remnants of aggregate transnationals, phyles like Subarashī or Ares operating as corporations and their population as employees. Others are the remnants of the ideological dreams people once fought over, such as the Common Socialist Union, a cooperative democracy and economy based on the economic democracy writings of the US economist David Schweickart, or the Apauruṣeya, who base their organization upon a progressive interpretation of the Hindi religion and many mystical elements of Hindu culture. Phyle membership is almost always voluntary though many phyles are hard to join. The majority of the world's population belong to one phyle or another, with membership usually requiring tax payments and labor on behalf of the phyle. Those without phyles, informally called 'recluses', inhabit the bottom rungs of society, with no real organization or laws to protect them and often serving to fill the most menial positions of society. Most of the phyles have devolved some small portion of their power to form a supraphyllic government they call the Consensus. Similiar in some ways to the UN of the 20th and 21st centuries, the Consensus is intended mainly to provide for the co-existence of, and peaceful economic activity between phyles with potentially very different values. The year is 2112. Time-Line '2020s' Optical Computing Optical computing was finally considered ‘market-ready’ in the late and mid 2020s. Early costumers were primarily research and academic organization. As the technology was further developed, prices dropped, and operating systems and software caught up to the new hardware, optical computing became increasingly widespread in homes and businesses. The new computers proved vastly more powerful than previous digital computers but were still unable to develop their full potential due to the limits of networks (including the internet) designed for digital systems. As some companies and organizations developed their own optics-based intranet, the demand for widespread optical computing networks grew exponentially. Rise of Modernist Transnational Islam The early 2020s saw the death of Fethullah Gülen, leader of the Cemaat ("Community/Assembly" in Turkish)(1). The Cemaat, by this point, had grown its membership to tens of millions and held significant influence both within Turkey and Central Asia and further abroad including Germany, the USA, France and much of the Arab world though its many community support and welfare programs, schools, banks, media outlets, and for-profit health clinics and hospitals. After a brief period without a strong leader, the Cemaat adopted a group of four (relatively-younger) men and one woman to serve as the new leadership. Two of these were first generation Canadians of Turkish origins, one Sunni, one Shia. One was a German-educated Turk. One was an Egyptian. The last was, quite unexpectedly, a Kurd. The council of five was purposefully chosen to represent the progressive, moderate, and inclusive face of the organization. Perhaps unexpectedly for some within the organization who had perhaps sought to manipulate the new leaders from behind the scenes, they proved to be very capable in their own rights, idealistic, and very ambitious. For decades the Cemaat had been plagued with accusations of cult-like secrecy and nefarious intentions, as well as secret anti-modern conservatism hiding behind a modern, progressive, and inclusive rhetoric. The five choose first to deal with those accusations, instituting programs of transparency and goodwill while at the same time continuing their focus on interfaith dialogue. They expanded their focus on women’s education, which some in the west complained did not go far enough, but which were, by most Islamic standards, highly progressive. The five even met with the pope and influential rabbis. The real break-through came, however, when the Cemaat met with members of the Muslim Brotherhood (2). As the governments of first Syria, and later Iraq and Egypt engaged in increasingly oppressive and violent measures to combat the growing influence of the Islamic State (and its successor organizations), and the later were able to increase both their direct control (at least intermittently) and indirect influence (through both charity organization and fundamentalist madrassas), the Muslim Brotherhood was slowly losing influence, and even members, to their militant rivals. As a consequence of these meetings, and in the face of the increasing influence of militant transnational Islamic fundamentalism, the two organizations agreed to pool their resources and join their efforts, creating the Ummah Al Salaam. Perhaps because it needed to distinguish itself so thoroughly from the Islamic State and its various successors, the Ummah Al Salaam was much more progressive than the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, in terms of western and Israeli diplomacy, educational opportunities, and roles for women, the ideologies of the Cemaat came to effectively dominate the new organization. Despite domestic fears of increasing influence, Europe, the USA, and their allies saw the Ummah Al Salaam, much as Muslims everwhere did, as a strong practical counterbalance to Sunni fundamentalism and supported the new organization over the protests of the Turkish and Egyptian states who feared in them their unapologetically political agenda and transnational reach and influence. For political reasons, the Ummah sought to develop relations with other transnational organizations rather than states, at least in the Middle East, coordinating with organizations such as the Red Crescent and the chapters of Médecins Sans Frontières operating amongst Islamic populations. In 2028, the Umma absorbed the Hizb ut-Tahrir (3), though some of its members refused to compromise vis-a-vis Israel and left to form their own organization or to join the Islamic State and its successors. In 2029, it absorbed the Tablighi Jama‘at (4), though the later was able to substantially influence the economic and cultural agenda of the Umma Al Salaam, moving their focus towards popularism and grass-roots activism in many areas. Now with membership in the hundreds of millions, with significant chapters in Pakistan, Burma, and Indonesia, the Umma was a power onto itself, an actor with influence and resources to rival nations. Embolded by their sucsseses amongst Sunnis, the ruling council (now eleven) sought to heal the rift between Sunni and Shia (seeing in the Shia a strong counterbalance to the fundamentalists movements) and focused extensively on marketing an inclusive vision for their organization with slogans like “One Koran, One People.” Although Hezbollah never joined the Ummah Al Salaam, relations were good, with many highly public joint charity operations launched by the organizations to help forge links between a previously divided people. For many who had been caught up in the Islamic State (and its successors) or the various militant organizations, the Ummah Al Salaam was the first true alternative. Islamic, powerful, operationally and financially influential, modern and mdeia savy with wide-spread grass-roots support, its appeal was enough to draw substantial members from the previously militant organizations and for the first time in nearly two decades significantly slow Islamic fundamentalism. Very soon the Ummah Al Salaam was the voice of Islam, not only in Turkey and Egypt, but throughout the world, with substantial membership in northern Africa, Indonesia, Pakistan, Central Asia, eastern China, and even in Europe and North America. The council met with the leaders of the European Union, the United Nation, and even Israel. The international news media, so tired of reporting on violence between Muslims in the middle east and the growing influence of militancy and fundamentalism, was happy to report on the ‘New Face of Islam’. As the decade closed Muslims and non-Muslims alike were optimistic for a future unmarred by fundamentalism, violence, and terrorism. 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BClen_movement 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood 3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hizb_ut-Tahrir 4: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablighi_Jamaat '2030s' 'Hyper-Globalization' Two technologies matured simultaneously in the early 2030s to accelerate globalization. The first was in materials, with significant knock-on effects in international transport. The second was in computing. Material scientists, by the 2030s, were fairly adept at creating nanoscale materials such as carbon nanotubes, advanced aerogels, carbene alloys, and other materials. These materials possessed unprecedented mechanical properties allowing the exploration of new and exciting avenues of engineering not previously available. These advances, in conjunction with continuing pressure from environmentalists and soaring fuel prices led to a major shift in international cargo transport as shippers moved increasingly moved towards cheaper, more energy efficient, vacuum-lift airships. The ''modern ''airships of the 2030s were made up of a honeycomb of superstrong carbon aerogel reinforced with an outer layer of woven nanocarbon fibre on a carbene-alloy frame. The void within the honeycomb structure provided much greater lift then hydrogen or helium. Combined with advances in photo-solar power, these new vehicles quickly revolutionized global transport due to relatively low operational costs, reduced need for infrastructure (taking off from warehouse parking lots instead of airports), and impressive carrying capacities. And while they weren't able to compete with airplanes for speed, and thus lost out on executive personal travel and epeditiated cargo delivery, they came to dominate much of the remaining market. Like the steamship of the early 20th century, the vacuum airship helped to connect the world to an unprecedented level, removing many of the obsticles to globalization that had begun to arrise due to soaring fuel and energy prices and making international, even transcontinental transport accessible to vast swathes of the population not preveiously able to enjoy such freedoms. The second technology to accelerate globalization was what was to become known as the Internet 2.0. The adoption of optical computers in the 2020s led to a revolution in computing power but unfortunately also required a vast overhaul of the physical computing infrastructure that made up the internet. There was some resistance to the change, especially from some of the computing giants who were afraid to lose their dominance and near-monopolies, but ultimately the explosive computing power of the new machines won over and the internet was effectively rebuilt. The fall of the old physical infrastructure allowed innumerable globe-spanning businesses to enter the market, all competing on a much more level playing-field to provide network access locally and globally. In the absence of corporate juggernauts like Google, Comcast, or Huawei, the cost of connectivity soon plummeted. In the Internet 2.0’s 2030s incarnation, large mega-servers (called meta-nodes) would service a particular area and connect with other meta-nodes via fiber-optic networks. From there connections were primarily wireless, with personal nodes (such as wearable goggles) or the increasingly ubiquitous minor home or commercial nodes connecting primarily via a technology comparable conceptually to early 21st century blue-tooth or direct node to node cellular access. This had the effect of linking physical space and virtual- internet- space to a much greater degree as most nodes were associated with a very real physical presence. People had already been experiencing the internet via ‘wearables’, with virtual reality superimposed over their vision for some time. The ‘node-to-node’ component of the internet 2.0 reinforced this. Now when an individual met another, they might also see their social media presence as a scrollable semi-transparent graphics display floating beside them. A restaurant might have a virtual menu hanging outside its doors. And while the internet became more tied to physical space, it lost none of its geography-defying reach. The change was subtle but could not be ignored. It was a change not only in the computational process of the internal, but also in the way we interacted with it, and with each other- a change in culture similar to the introduction of the cell phone at the end of the 20th century. ‘Areas’ of the internet began to take on a cultural signature based on their physical location. Nodes operating out of Vancouver-meta might begin to take on an increasingly local flavor- a unique mix of Hong Kong and Western Canadian, of environmentalist and hyper-capitalist. Nodes operation out of San Antonio-meta might take on a uniquely Texan-Mexican flavor. The internet 2.0 was just as global, but much more linked to regional culture than its predecessor. Users expanded their awareness not only into the internet’s purely virtual world, but also to a virtual reality intimately tied to territory and geography all over the world. The combination of being able to experience a distant physical reality via the internet instantaneously and at will, along with greatly increased access and reduced transportation cost had a hugely accelerative effect on globalization- financially and culturally.